Robots and the science of robotics are receiving increasing interest and attention both in terms of use in industrial environments and research to improve existing robots and develop far more sophisticated robots.
Robots of the current generation may be equipped with elementary artificial vision and tactile sensors, e.g., television cameras and pressure sensitive switches or load cells, respectively. The ability to accurately sense small variations in pressure, ideally on the scale exhibited by biological fingers, and utilize that information in an interactive or feedback system, is predicted to become an increasingly important area of robotic technology in the future.